July 4: NIWA

Today I had the privilege of shadowing and interviewing a scientist from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research or NIWA. Di Tracey, is a successful research scientist who has been studying fisheries and the deep sea.

She knew at a young age that she wanted to spend her time working with science and specifically, the ocean. She grew up by the coast and developed a passion for marine biology.

Di Tracey and me at NIWA

During her research, she studies deep sea coral and also, gathers different information about fish. For example, when she gathers research about snappers she finds out the quantity, ages, reproduction age, and more because it is important to manage for quotas. Those are popular studies because of the fishing exports seen in New Zealand. She also worked with orange roughy fish for twenty years.

Over the years, she has witnessed the technology improve tremendously and make her work more advanced.  For example, swathe mapping has developed to better understand the ecosystem with sea mounts, canyons, ridges, and more.

In addition to the fisheries, she has conducted research with deep sea coral and habitats. They created habitats, worked on coral aging, fishing damaged, and what species were located in that area.

According to Tracey, losing the Great Barrier Reef would be a world disaster, not just an Australian one. If the reef is lost, an entire ecosystem is removed. Although some animals will adapt such as jellyfish, soft corals and sponges are not as likely. The ocean corals and fish larvae will extremely struggle.

Beautiful View from the NIWA building

Di and her coworker

She mentioned how it is up to our generation to fix this world problem and hopefully save the reef. Also, she said that environmental awareness has definitely increased over the years.

After talking and eating lunch, I met her coworkers and got a tour of the building. She then took me to the collections where they house 13,146 various marine species and 1,449 invertebrate species from over the last decade.  These are only New Zealand species and the scientists believe there are as much as three times more undiscovered. New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone or EEZ, is the fourth largest in the world. This is incredible especially considering the land size of the country. These collections of different species are important for scientific research, create a record of the species surrounding NZ, and advise marine conservation.  It is important to know the health of the species and whether it is rare, threatened, or unique. 

Below are pictures from the collections!

I loved spending the day here and increasing my knowledge! Di’s passion for not only the ocean, but also for women to be involved in math/science fields was inspiring. I hope to one day visit again.